


Shift (2.0)

by Sentra04



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Alternate Universe - Shapeshifters, Alternate Universe - Werewolf, Gen, Pack Dynamics, Wolf!John
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-11
Updated: 2014-05-11
Packaged: 2018-01-24 08:19:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,108
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1598057
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sentra04/pseuds/Sentra04
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock Holmes had, surprisingly, not foreseen this.<br/>Sure, he was playing it off like his plan had all along been to be trapped in a cage with a raging werewolf. But he had honestly not expected his now captors to be observant enough to pick up on him being a spy in their organization in the first place.</p><p>rewritten from an earlier draft</p>
            </blockquote>





	Shift (2.0)

**Author's Note:**

> terminology:  
>  **Canis-sapien** \- scientific classification for this universe's "werewolf"  
>  **canisoid** \- specifically refers to the canis-sapien's human form, but is also a layman's term for the species in general  
>  **feral** \- specifically refers to the canis-sapien's wolf form, but is also is a term many canisoid's use for each other - regardless of form  
>  **werewolf** \- a derogatory term used by humans

Sherlock Holmes had, surprisingly, not foreseen this.

Sure, he was playing it off like his plan had all along been to be trapped in a cage with a raging feral canis-sapien. But he had honestly not expected his now captors to be observant enough to pick up on him being a spy in their organization in the first place.

All his captors asked, it for him to just tell them who sent him to poke around, and they promised not to open the gate separating him from the angry pacing canisoid snarling at him from the metal divider. 

It looked to be cubanensis - a canisoid of the Caspian Sea Wolf - but it was so emaciated it was hard to tell. They called it Watson, as they drove the beast toward the divider with electric prods. It had been driven into a rage sometime before Sherlock had been forced into its vicinity; fur ragged and unkempt, matted with sweat and blood; foam gathering at the corners of its mouth with each snarl. It had been beaten and tasered into a bloodlust, and now it’s all attention was focused solely on Sherlock.

Don’t talk, and they promised let the feral-canisoid loose on him. Still refuse to talk, and it would kill him. Sherlock could only hope it was angry enough to go for a kill shot from the start, instead of letting it drag out. Because these men still believed there was someone Sherlock was answering too - and as soon as they found out there was not, they wouldn’t hesitate to get rid of him and any evidence he’d been there to start with. And if it meant letting a mad, starved canisoid eat him, so be it.

The grates shifted, signaling the door will soon move; that the feral would soon take him down. He hated to even entertain the thought, but Sherlock Holmes now saw his imminent death at the jaws of a bloodlust driven feral-canisoid.

The moment the gate lifted enough, the beast easily dove under it, snarling and raging as it launched at Sherlock, easily toppling the man to the ground. Heavy, hot breath and the gazing of teeth was at his throat, warning him to remain still. But no bite; no pain; And no blood.... Then, the muzzle pulled away, snarling at their captors while laying heavy over Sherlock’s body.

There was swearing; the electric prods reaching their long arms in and tried to persuade the beast into attacking; it failed. The canisoid continued its aggression to their captors, the faint tingling of jolts vibrating the air where the beast hovered just over Sherlock, pulling away enough to not force the downed human to endure the tasering with it.

Eventually the men had to admit defeat - and withdrew the prods. Finally one violently gestured for sherlock to remove himself from under the canisoid. Sherlock couldn’t help but bark out a laugh, and remained right where he was, the beast laying fully - but comfortably atop him in the cage.

It took an hour until finally someone came up with a plan, and the canisoid snarled as they approached - a tranquilizer gun in hand. With no where to run, the canisoid was an easy target, and within a few short minutes, it’s contents caused the canine to slump heavy against him, pinning Sherlock again to the floor with it’s bulk.

It smelt like blooming wolfsbane and the copper of blood, as Sherlock removed the dart; the wolf breathing laboriously and dead weighting on him. This was why Sherlock was here, rumors that those who’d stolen his research on wolfsbane all those years ago, where using his then-untested theories with marvelous results. 

Oh, how he wanted to explore the mixture that his cagemate had been injected with! What else had been used - besides the most obvious effects, what else did the mix do, if anything? What else CAN the mixes do - what had they been able to find out, using his notes as a starting point?!

Sherlock could deduce a great many things from the slumbering beast; could read the torture and beatings the animal had been submitted to in the last few months. Meager feedings, hostile enclosed spaces crammed close with other canisoid in the same state. When not being tested on, he was likely paraded about and beaten for the amusement of humans.

Canis-sapien heal fast - and rapid shifting back and forth between forms could even save them from otherwise fatal injuries, if they had the stamina to pull it off. Scars were rare; the massive knotted tears in flesh barely hidden from sight by coarse patchy fur along the canisoid’s left shoulder about as startling as the fact Sherlock was sitting here unharmed. It looked like a gunshot wound, as interpreted by Picasso, and gentle prodding said the injury wasn’t just skin deep; the muscles and bones just as torn and disfigured. 

It didn’t make sense, just like the fact this beast - a total stranger - had deemed it fit to NOT slaughter him (Though, maybe it was the fact he was a stranger that saved him).

Left along with the drugged canisoid for hours, Sherlock has plently of time to study his cagemate. Finally, when the beast started to stir, their captors returned, the guns they carried held more weight - armed with bullets this time, not traqs or stunners. Likely silver too, all the more dangerous for their canisoid prisoner. Even then, it was only when the muzzles turned on Sherlock, did the beast finally comply - an open lift door to the side leading to a small wire kennel, where the canisoid stood in defeated attention.

Watson was injected again - this does smaller, leaving him weak and disoriented, but still able to move under his own effort. A heavy silver and steel chain collar was clipped around his neck, wire and mesh muzzle around his snout. He flinched from the silver but made no sound, letting them open the cage and lead him wearily away.

Sherlock stood warily, watching, noting with displeasure how... eager … the men where in dragging the beast away. How.. entertained they were with the idea of what awaited the beast. 

They were leading Watson, the oddly kind canis-sapien, to his death. A likely bloody and violent one, with many, many human spectators. 

These cages were meant for canisoid. Built to hold canis-sapien indefinitely.

They were not built for Sherlock’s maybe tall, but narrow body, not certainly not his skill in lock picking. 

Because the protective canis-sapien with the unidentifiable scar- the first in a long time to show Sherlock Holmes any kindness- was about to be slaughtered for sport.

Sherlock Holmes had not foreseen this. He had never once thought he’d be spurred by such an illogical need to act in someone else’s favor.

But the slender man ran down the hall all the same. Watson was already inside the center cage - a chanco canisoid pacing the divider separating them. Watson remained calm; drugged into a stupor. The moment the gate went up, the other canis-sapien would easily tear him apart, a crowd of twenty humans screaming and chanting for blood waiting and watching them.

While the silver fencing was too much for a canis-sapien, it was little match for Sherlock and a set of pilfered keys. He threw up the gate to the raging canis-sapien, full with bloodlust, and waiting to be let loose on anything that moved. Watson remained safe inside the cage, Sherlock quickly scrambling above until it was safe to slip in the vacated hole, as the chanco canisoid went about slaughtering the now fleeing human spectators.

Once it had moved off to chance the screaming, frantic humans down, Sherlock easily freed the trapped canis-sapien and they fled into the night.

\----------------------------------------------------------  
When shifted, and in an unfamiliar place, most canis-sapien will flee to the countryside. Human emotions are unstable in regards to them, and it was just safer that way. Sherlock Holmes instead directed them into London herself, and Watson followed (abit slower than Sherlock would like) without question. Sherlock supposed it was times like this where being pack driven was an advantage, and he lead them deep into London’s underground; where being a hunted canis-sapien and an unarmed homo-sapien was likely the least threatening thing lurking in the shadows.

He slowed to a casual trot as he searched out a corner of the deep that would be safe from the prying eyes of the outcastes; the canisoid struggling visibly now to keep pace. The horizons had begun to lighten before they hit the tunnels, sun rise would be not long in following. It was the second day of the new moon, in a very short time, Watson would be forced back into a human body. Without a proper hiding place, without clothes for the canisoid to hide in, it would be all too easy to find and capture them when it did happen.

He knew they could look no further, darting down one last tunnel as the new moon broke the horizon, somewhere on the surface. Eagerly, Sherlock turned to regard the canisoid who’d thrown such a wrench into things, wanting to speak to the man properly.

Watson was not having such an easy time, crying softly in a massive pile of bones broken, but not yet re-mending. The coarse, wiry wolf hair had actually fallen out, leaving a bare skinned beast sobbing out as bones struggled to reknit themselves. The snout had started to retract, hands mostly human, but the soft light brown hair growing on his head was now also sprouting up on the back of still wolf ears. Sherlock knelt down next to him to get a better look; the short fur continued down his neck and back, growing out of the tail that refused to go.

Watson trembled, voice rough and still beast-like as it quietly voiced its agony to him, shuddering and pitching forward and Sherlock moved to catch him.

In the still trembling mess of bones, the wound was easily that of a long range gun, clear and distinctive. As his shoulders started to set into a more human arrangement, the wound became mishappened and wrong again.

Watson had been shot with a sniper rifle roughly six months ago - mid shift. 

And judging from how calm, if not miserable, Watson was at the moment- this strange half shift he was trapped in, was something he’d grown used too in his captivity.

\----------------------------------------------------------

Ms. Hudson was rummaging down stairs, the sounds of tea making working their way up the stairs to flat B of 221 Baker street.

He was still in boxes, been busy with some cases both for NSY and his own investigations into some of the canisoid disappearances that seemed to be more frequent in the last four months. As he listened to his new landlady bustling about, Sherlock sprawled out on his only partially unburied couch, as the last day of Moon Shift started.

By moon down yesterday evening, it seemed the last of Watson’s injections had cleared his system, and he’d shifted flawlessly into beast with all the natural grace of a born canis-sapien. The feral canisoid had followed Sherlock though the tunnels and then streets of London without hesitation, showing only the first signs of unease when they’d made it to lurk next to the bins of Baker Street until kindly Ms Hudson had awoken to Sherlock’s soft knocks and let them both inside.

Watson had hung back, slunk down next to the rubbish. But when the elderly lady didn’t bat an eye at the tall man striding into her home, he eased forward, tentatively. 

"Hello. Come in, Dear." she told him from the open doorway. Even then, it wasn’t until Sherlock looked back to see what was taking so long before the wolf darted inside. At some point in the night, Watson had curled up in the closet of Sherlock’s bedroom - the small area a sad comfort after so much time in captivity, no doubt.

Sherlock had left a dressing gown folded down on the floor next to the sleeping beast, and a few hours after moon rise, a short blond man, appearance hinted at yesterday, wandered unsteadily out into the living room in said gown.

He looked around the room, seeming confused at the mess and his current location.

“Ah, Watson. You’re awake.” Sherlock sat up, judging the man’s reactions, “The name’s Sherlock Holmes. Welcome to 221B Baker Street.”

The man made a low growl, before shaking his head with a cough. His voice was dry and soft, scratchy from disuse. He gestures to the mantle, his first words in six months.

“That’s a skull.”

**Author's Note:**

> __(Brief) Common Knowledge World Notes__  
> John is a canis lupin cubanensis - Caspian Sea Wolves
> 
> Canis-sapien must shift on the full and new moons. Shifts are based on the moon's rise and fall. On a Full moon, they must be feral(wolf), and on the New moon, the must be canisoid(human)
> 
> canisoid are born as beta or alpha. Only alphas can turn a human to a canisoid. Alphas are fairly rare, usually only 1 in 30. An Alpha who is not the leader of their own pack is called an omega  
> (this is NOT the A/B/O dynamic that is seen in many fanfics)  
> (canisoid are also typically born in sets of two.)
> 
> canisoids crave companionship. Packs are everything. there are three main types of packs - the bloodline pack (one is born into), the social pack (school, friends, jobs), and the BST pack (blood,sweat&tears - military, law enforcement, gangs, traumatic survivals, fire department, ect.) It is possible to belong to two or all three packs causally, but typically one pack alpha will have more say over an individual.


End file.
